You know that scene in Mad Max where everyone kills each other over a liter of gasoline? Yeah. We're not there yet, but the smell of burning fuel is in the air.
The price per gallon of gas in the United States jumped overnight. Literally. Americans woke up, drove to the pump, and got slapped in the face with something Brazilians know all too well: pricier pumps, lighter wallets, and zero decent explanation from the people who should be explaining.
And it didn't stop at the U.S. Drivers in Europe and Asia are already filling up their tanks like the apocalypse is tomorrow. Lines at gas stations. Panic. Herd behavior. The circus is in full swing.
What the hell is behind this?
Let's get to what matters. Fuel prices don't rise "out of nowhere." Ever. When you hear a TV analyst say "the market reacted," translate that to: "someone with a lot of money and a lot of information moved before everyone else."
The factors are the usual suspects, but in a particularly toxic cocktail:
Geopolitical tension. Unstable Middle East, Russia playing chess with oil, OPEC+ cutting production like someone turning off the faucet just to watch you beg for water. Nothing new, but everything hitting at once is a different animal.
The dollar. When the dollar moves, the oil barrel dances along. And the dollar has been moving plenty, thank you Jerome Powell and your crew of monetary wizards at the Fed.
Pure speculation. There are people making boatloads of money off you paying more at the pump. Commodity funds, oil futures traders, the whole ecosystem that profits from volatility. As Taleb would say: the guy in air-conditioned Manhattan betting on WTI prices is not the guy standing in line at a gas station in middle-of-nowhere Oklahoma.
Panic is the real fuel
This is where things get interesting — and pathetic.
When drivers rush to fill up their tanks, they create their own shortage. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's the gas-station version of a bank run. Everyone wants to get theirs before it runs out, and by doing so, it runs out faster.
Remember 2021? The Colonial Pipeline hack in the U.S. Gas hadn't actually run out, but the panic drained stations dry in a matter of hours. People filling plastic bags with gasoline. Literally. That happened.
Human beings are irrational animals when it comes to perceived scarcity. Daniel Kahneman proved it in the lab. The market proves it every single day in real life.
So where does Brazil fit in?
Ah, Brazil. The land where gasoline prices play out like a telenovela with 300 episodes.
Petrobras has its pricing policy that nobody truly understands — not even them, sometimes. When the barrel goes up overseas, the pressure for domestic adjustments comes in like a wave. The difference is that in Brazil there's a political component: no government wants to be the one that greenlights a price hike at the pump. So they hold it, hold it, hold it... until the bill explodes.
If oil keeps on this trajectory, bet on it: within a few weeks the topic of "price gap" will be back on prime-time news. And Petrobras will be stuck in that limbo between pleasing shareholders and pleasing the politicians in the capital.
Spoiler: you can't please both. Never could.
What does the smart investor do?
First: don't panic. Panic is for people without a strategy.
Second: understand that energy is the most politicized sector on the planet. Investing in oil, gas, or fuel requires a strong stomach and a long time horizon. Anyone who bought Petrobras at rock bottom in 2016 and held on knows this.
Third: look at history. Every gas price spike has a cycle. It goes up, everyone screams, it adjusts, it comes back down. The world isn't ending. But someone's going to lose money — and it's usually the person who bought at the peak of panic or sold at the bottom of fear.
Warren Buffett likes to say the market transfers money from the impatient to the patient. In the energy market, that quote should be tattooed on every investor's arm.
The only question that remains is this: are you going to be the guy filling plastic bags with gasoline in a panic, or the guy who already had a full tank because he thinks before the herd moves?
